The Descendants Series Vol. 2

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked, laughing, as I looked down at Nash.

He was lying on his stomach beside where we were sitting in the common area.  He only had on his pants, using his balled up shirt as a pillow.  After our fight, Kate had gone back to the infirmary and had gotten cool compresses for him.  We’d put them all over his back and he had one between him and his shirt, resting his forehead against it.

“Oh, yeah.  I’m okay,” Nash mumbled into his shirt.  “Just a few cuts, bruises all over my body and maybe a broken rib or two.  I’m fine.”

“Sorry about making it worse,” Rowan said, laughing.

“I’m not sorry for enjoying you get beat up,” Kade said, putting his arm around me. 

“I think we know that already,” Nash said, turning his face to the side so he could look up at us.  “You’re not very subtle when it comes to letting someone know how you feel about them.”

“He’s got a point,” I said, looking at Kade.

“I’m a very straight forward kind of person,” he said, smiling at me.  “Just like I’m going to come straight forward toward you now…”

I laughed and leaned in to kiss him.

“You guys are just too cute,” Blair said, smiling. 

 “There’s a guy in pain over here,” Nash mumbled into his rolled up shirt again. 

Roth, who was sitting next to Rowan, kicked his side with his foot.  “Oh, quit groaning,” he said.

“Ow,” Nash said.  “Did you just seriously kick me?”

 “Yes, I did,” he said.  Roth kicked him again.  “And again.”

 Nash groaned again and sat up fast.  He winced in pain.  “Stop doing that!” he said.

We all just laughed at him as he lay back down.

As the weeks went by, everything fell more and more into place.  Everyone was settling in and I could tell they were happier, including me.

Rowan seemed to change even more now that she was with Roth again.  I was beginning to see more of her true self.  I could also see why she was so attached to him.  No one ever saw them apart or, if they weren’t in the same room which was a rare occasion, they couldn’t go two sentences without mentioning the other.  Even though it did get annoying sometimes that I was never able to talk to Rowan alone unless we were about to go to sleep, it was still worth seeing her really, truly happy.

Grandma, Auden, Ryder, Lilah and Lyric were all happier, too.  Grandma seemed to smile a lot more not that she was back together with the rest of her family.  Every night at dinner she, Luke, Eli and all the others would tell stories about when they were growing up.  Even though I did like in it at one time, it was hard hearing about how the country was before and how life was, how everything was before the Directrix took over.

It was great having more people our age to talk to.  It was like we had our own little group that we mainly hung out with.  It consisted of Kade, Rowan, Roth, Xander, Peyton, Harper, Slade, Blair, Frey, Nash and sometimes Dane.  He mostly stayed around with Zoe, Adem and McKenna though.  The only time he came over to us was to bug Nash.

Out of all the people that were at Division Sixteen, Nash was the one that I’d grown closest to.  I guess it was ever since the day that we’d fought.  And every day since, the two of us – including almost everyone else – went to the weapons room to practice.  I was basically teaching him everything that I had taught Rowan.